Death Kiss – Naomi E. Lloyd
Synopsis
Death Kiss is an adult, dark fantasy, romance novel which draws you into a world of magic, deception, seductive twists, and desire.
Will it be your turn to die today? A witch’s kiss may hold the answer.
Set in a dark vision of the near future, the world lives under the control of a violent group of mercenaries called ‘scrapers’ who are culling the population like animals to ‘save’ the planet.
Innocent people are being murdered every day at random, and each attack is more brutal and more unpredictable than the next.
There is nothing anybody can do to stop them.
Except…
The girl with the death kiss.
One kiss from Silver and you are shown exactly when, where and how you will die.
But her gift is her curse as she is held captive by three identical triplet brothers who abuse her gift to survive.
Silver believes slavery is preferable to death and as long as she’s saving people with her kiss, she can endure, but little does she know her kiss holds a much darker agenda.
*This book is intended for readers 18+ as it features dark themes that may be upsetting or triggering for some readers.*
Review
It is in the darkest moments that we can have to let hope prevail. Only then can we see the light.
Ava is a 20-year-old who has a very special “gift”. When she gave her first real kiss at the age of 16, she saw the boy’s death in her mind. She panicked and escaped without saying anything to him, but the boy did indeed die as she had predicted only 3 days later. Since then Ava understood that a kiss of hers could discover the cause, time and place of a person’s future death. Quite useful skill in the world she lived in.
I’m not stupid. I have a death kiss, not a death wish.
Ava’s world is dominated by a group called “scrapers” and they have decided (in the best Thanos-style way) that it is necessary to solve the overpopulation of the planet. The best way to do it fairly was to kill one in ten they saw. Sometimes new rules were included, such as “Kill the 10th man today” or “kill the 10th blonde.”
Unfortunately Ava never used her ability on her family and was unable to prevent the murder of her parents on their anniversary day. After that, she was separated from her younger sister and Ava was taken away to “protect” her.
She ended up being a slave to Sterling, a millionaire general who decided to use Ava, whom he renamed Silver, as a circus show and allow everyone to kiss her to get her “death free pass” even if it was momentary. When Ava had no more energy to continue with the visions, they tortured her to “recharge”. At least she was safe from being raped, as they feared her ability would disappear if she lost her purity, but this doesn’t stop more than one from trying. Especially Hastings, the general’s right hand man and a disgusting man.
Another plunge into darkness. Another alien tongue. Another fucking kiss.
Ava only manages to resist because she must find her sister. She’s quite strong, but no one should find strength with the atrocities that she had to experience.
I am human. And I am precious. I’m not a metal. I’m carbon. I’m diamond. I’m strength. I’m light. And my name is not Silver. My name is Ava.
In a twist of fate, Ava is “rescued”, but is inherited like an object to triplets who have just found out about the others. These are Hunter, the oldest and who thinks he is the leader. Aiden, the youngest, whose childhood traumas have turned him into a child locked in the body of an adult, and who fully accepts Hunter’s leadership. And Xander or Alexander, the middle brother, the most handsome of the three (even if they are triplets) and with a good heart. He refuses to abuse Ava’s gift and does his best to make her stay more tolerable, but he doesn’t want to risk the lives of his siblings, or anyone else, by freeing her (I still think Ava has mild Stockholm syndrome).
But the fate of Ava and the triplets is about to change, for better or for worse.
I can’t say that I loved this book, in fact I hated almost every second of reading it. But technically this is good…
The story caught me right away. Ava was having a difficult time, but she was enduring it. I wanted to keep reading and “save” her from torture as quickly as possible, but things get even worse.
“You know why I liked Thumbelina so much more than any of the other fairytales, mum?”
“I have an idea but do tell me.”
“Because the witch in the story was a good one.”
It is the most terrible book I have read in my life. I thought Forgotten Child had been hard to read, but this one was a thousand times worse. Too many descriptions. Naomi warned it was dark, but I didn’t think this much. I usually like to read because it is a way to escape reality, but this book felt like a frozen bucket of reality water thrown in my face. I realized it would be difficult, and there were times when it just seemed too much to me, but I couldn’t stop reading because I needed answers.
The worst part for me was realizing that the biggest horrors in the book are not paranormal. Murders, torture, rape, and pedophilia are horribly real. There were moments that literally made me nauseous, and the plot twist gave me the most impressive chill a book has ever given me.
All that said, for me this book deserves 4.5/5 stars. The suffering it produces is because of how incredibly realistic it is, while the plot keeps you completely trapped. I’m just not giving it 5 stars because there are more unsolved questions than I would have liked, despite it being only the first book.
It seems totally recommendable to me, but only if you like dark fantasy and are not overly sensitive. It is not a fairy tale.
I will definitely follow Ava’s story, until she can find the light within all that darkness. This is the reason why I decided to read this story.
“The darkness was there to lead you back to light. You’re on a journey, Ava But it’s not mine. It’s yours. And it will hurt sometimes. There will be pain. But there is light too.”
Bye bye ?
